There comes a point where the human brain is so worn out and tired that previously-illogical acts suddenly take on a new clarity and seem utterly normal.
My anecdotes rarely involve alcohol. I don’t drink often and when I do I’m a slow drinker who Knows His Limits, and so I’ll always reach the ‘Oo-er, I feel a bit ill’ stage long before I reach the ‘Hey, I think I’ll show everyone my cock!’ stage which I’m sure we’re all thankful for. Occasionally, though, due to a combination of ready internet access and insomnia, I’ll do something profoundly stupid. This is one of those times.
It was late one night, and I was tired. Really, really tired; my eyes were falling asleep of their own accord and I was stumbling a little. I knew I had to go to work the next morning but for some reason I decided to check something on ebay before I turned in for the night. I don’t remember what it was that I was checking because I wasn’t selling or bidding on anything, but it seemed perfectly logical at the time. What also seemed perfectly logical was searching on ebay for a Megadrive and Mega-CD combination. I mean, why not? What else would I be doing at 1am on a weeknight, eh? And I found several and it seemed logical to bid on one. Because I wanted one.
Now, had this been during the day, my internal dialogue would have gone something like this:
ME: Hey, a Megadrive and Mega-CD. Nice. Just the same model of Megadrive as I had when growing up and the matching Mega-CD.
ME2: So?
ME: Well…I might just bid for that.
ME2: Why?
ME: So I can play old games, like…Sonic CD…and…
ME2: You know that you can get all the Sonic games for the Gamecube, right? And that the usually-absent Sonic CD is actually being included on the next Sonic collection, due out in a few months?
ME: Well…yes…
ME2: Exactly. Stop being a wanker.
And that would have been the end of it. Nostalgia aside, there’s really no reason for me to bid here; the only games I want are all available in some form or another on current-gen hardware. However, I was so tired that my internal dialogue actually went along these lines:
ME: Hey, a Megadrive and Mega-CD. Nice. Just the same model of Megadrive as I had when growing up and the matching Mega-CD.
ME2: …
ME: Hello?
ME2: …
ME: Ok! Let’s do this!
So I went ahead and put in a bid. But naturally, the story doesn’t end there, because a thought occurred to my sleep-deprived mind. Just a small thought.
ME: I could just…buy them all.
You may be able to see where this is going.
I got a little carried away.
Now, I’ve mentioned before that there’s a lot of consoles that I want, but for financial reasons have never collected. I’ve always been very good in the past at resisting the temptation, but that night it all just went horribly, horribly wrong. “I could just buy them all” I had thought, and I had sleepily worked out the maths. Most of these consoles would only cost a few quid each, probably, so really it wouldn’t be that big a purchase.
I don’t actually remember the bidding process — I can only assume that I was nearly unconscious by this point — but I do remember waking up the next day and finding out what I had bid on.
One Megadrive, one Mega-CD, one Sega 32X, one PC Engine, one N64, one Crystal Wonderswan, one Neo-Geo Pocket Colour, one Neo-Geo, one SNES, one NES, one Vectrex, one Sega Saturn, one 3D0 and — and this is perhaps the most mystifying of all — not one but three Virtual Boys. All at a total bid price (including all postage costs) of approximately £300.
Well, crap.
It’s not as bad as it sounds.
I’m fortunate that for whatever reason my brain decided it was going to bid for these things and not try to use the Buy it Now functionality because then I could rely on other bidders to save me from what I had done — it was such a slow, drawn-out process though. I’ve never spent so many days desperately wishing for someone to out-bid me, and there were times when I thought about just setting up a new account so I could out-bid myself but I felt a bit bad about that; there are limits, after all.
Luckily — and somewhat predictably — I was eventually out-bid on every item. It was ok, I was safe — breathe. Still, it left me wishing that ebay had some sort of time-lock capability — it could be window shopping-only between the hours of 11pm and 6am, perhaps.
And things could have been so much worse, of course. I could have ended up at the Apple store, where they have the cursed ‘one-click purchase’ system that’s caused me problems in the past on Amazon. These systems aren’t designed for convenience, they’re designed for people like me, who lack basic willpower and are easily attracted by useless stuff. I worry that I’ll end up in the ‘And finally…’ section of the local news one day, as a comedy fluff piece about a man who spent his life savings on every NES game in existence but doesn’t actually own a NES.
Not that I have any life savings. Life savings are so twentieth century.